Demerits needed to curb speed

Peter Palamara said there was a need to introduce demerit points for speeding offences up to 9km/h over the speed limit.

He said the current system did not make sense as research showed travelling 5km/h over a 60km/h speed limit doubled the risk of a crash.

‘Without a demerit point for that level of speeding, you have a situation where drivers can continue to speed and it not affect their ability to drive in the future,’ Mr Palamara said.

‘The other point is that on a double-demerit point weekend, that sort of speeding behaviour is exempted because there are no penalty points attached to it and that’s a poor thing because we are trying to be consistent about speeding.

‘Penalties should reflect the risk of crashing associated with that sort of behaviour.’